HSBC Account switch. What a joke!

milleniumaire

In early September my wife and I completed the online account switching form for HSBC. A couple of weeks later we each received letters asking us to supply proof income. The letter arrived on Saturday and on Tuesday I took all the required documents to my local HSBC bank, where they took copies.

Around a couple of weeks later and we hadn't heard a peep, so I called them, to be told another letter was about to be sent out asking for "more" proof of income - they wanted our 2017/18 tax returns. Not sure why they didn't ask for these in the first letter! Unfortunately, we were then away for a week, so didn't get this letter, dated 12/10/18 until 22/10/18 on our return. The letter stated we had 14 days from the date of the letter to supply the documents.

I called them immediately to explain we had been away and was told that the application had expired as it is only valid for 30 days!!!!!

To be honest, I was furious. I have wasted my time applying, visiting the branch and have made a couple of loooooong phone calls (it takes time to get through to them) and now, because of THEIR delays, I have exceeded their 30 day application window. Unbelievable. I asked about the 14 days mentioned on their latest request for information and they said it was a "generic" letter and the 30 day restriction takes priority.

They now want us to start the application process again and "kindly" offered to make an appointment at a branch so we could waste even more time applying. I told them not to bother. If this is an example of their customer service I will avoid this bank like the plague. In my opinion they are clearly useless, are unable to process new accounts in a timely manner and then expect their potential customers to jump through hoops. Well, not this customer.

I have raised a formal complaint. It will be interesting to see how long this takes to process.

Just wanted to warn others of the 30 day limit for applying and the potential for HSBC to drag out their process beyond this, then expect the customer to apply again.

[Deleted User]

This seems like a one-off.

And you went away for a week which added to the delay, so it's not entirely on HSBC's back.

JuicyJesus

!!! wrote: »

This seems like a one-off.

And you went away for a week which added to the delay, so it's not entirely on HSBC's back.

OK, but even leaving that aside, 23 days is a !!!!take in this day and age.

castle96

PITA bank !

colsten

!!! wrote: »

This seems like a one-off.

It is not a one-off. Opening an HSBC current account, particularly the Advance one, is invariably taking absolute ages.

EachPenny

JuicyJesus wrote: »

OK, but even leaving that aside, 23 days is a !!!!take in this day and age.

But then so is asking for proof of income, unless the OP was applying for a sizeable overdraft or for the Premier account. :whistle:

milleniumaire

I was looking to switch to the Advance account.

My week's holiday had nothing to do with the delay.

I was told during my phone conversation today that the expiry date of the application was 16th October. The letter I received from HSBC was dated 12th October and I hadn't received it on the 15th when we left for our holiday. It arrived some time between 15th and 22nd October, but I can't say when. Even if it arrived on the 15th, that would have given me a day to get the additional documents to them. As they wanted to see a tax return for the 2017/18 tax year and this hasn't yet been submitted (it isn't due until the end of this year) then that would have been impossible anyway. I had already provided them with my 2016/17 tax return, despite them NOT asking for it, as part of the previous set of income documents I gave them.

When I spoke to someone at HSBC prior to going on holiday, to find out why I hadn't heard from them in at least 2 weeks (could have been 3, I can't recall), I was told that they had EVERYTHING that HSBC needed to confirm my income and our income was more than enough to open the Advance account. He suggested they may want further income proof (via the 2017/18 tax return) to enable them to make targeted loan suggestions, which I wouldn't have been interested in anyway!

It's all a bit of a joke and makes HSBC look like a bunch of cowboys. I will take this as a close shave and avoid them in the future. As well as myself and my wife looking to switch to their current Advance accounts, we were considering moving our business account also. Their loss!

eskbanker

I'm confused about the '30 day application window' and wonder if there may have been some crossed wires somewhere along the way.

The Advance switching offer does need the switch to be started within 30 days of the account being opened, but if they were still seeking proof of income that would suggest that the account(s) hadn't got as far as actually being opened and so surely the 30 day switch clock wouldn't even have started ticking?

gt94sss2

In a presentation (slide 9) a few months ago, HSBC UK were saying that they had reduced the time it took to open an Advance Account to 10 minutes compared to 3-4 days in 2016.

I imagine that's an average/minimum and there was something with your application that warranted further checks - perhaps the fact that I assume you're self employed given the reference to business accounts.

milleniumaire

I lodged a formal complaint during the telephone conversation with HSBC customer support on 23/10/18 when they told me my application had expired, despite THEM taking all the time to process the application. To be fair the customer support representative was the one who suggested I could raise a complaint.

On 27/10/18 I received a letter from HSBC confirming that the Customer Care Team would look into the issue I raised.

On 29/10/18 I received an identical letter from HSBC, but dated two days later. It would appear even their computer systems are getting it wrong!

It has now been over 3 weeks and I'm still waiting to hear about my complaint. I don't expect much as they have already proved their incompetence to me.

[Deleted User]

What are you expecting to get?

You won’t get compensation as you’re not financially hard done by.